Australia is on the verge of doing an Ofcom by bringing its media and communications regulators together under one umbrella.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will merge the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) and the Australian Communications Authority (ACA), and will be responsible for regulating telecommunications, broadcasting, radiocommunications and online content (amazingly Australia attempts to regulate online content).

The rationale for ACMA is the same as that for Ofcom - converged regulation aimed at meeting new challenges posed by the convergence of broadcasting and telecoms technologies. ACMA will be established by 1 July 2005.

But a recent Australian Senate Committee hearing suggested that some remained unconvinced that the new regulator would be effective, with claims that ACMA will be unfocused and lacking formal guidance.

Australian Telecommunications Users Group managing director Rosemary Sinclair told the committee ACMA should be given enough powers so it played a role in competition and consumer protection issues.

“We don’t think the powers proposed are really adequate to what is a very large task,” she told the committee.

“It seems to me that the one glaring omission from this legislation (to set up ACMA) is an objectives clause which would (state) … that this body ought to be focused on pro-competitive outcomes in all its work.”

Of course, ACMA also faces the same problems as regulator’s world around - a former state monopoly in the form of Telstra (the government still owns a stake).

The Competitive Carriers Coalition have suggested that ACMA won’t have the powers to constrain the ability of Telstra to exercise its market power. And in response Telstra have said that the industry is already over-regulated. Sound familiar?